Childhood obesity abstract

Pmcid: pmc3278864pmid: 22506094childhood obesity: a global public health crisissameera karnik and amar kanekar1sameera karnikmasters of public health program, american public university, east stroudsburg, pa, usafind articles by sameera karnikamar kanekar1department of health studies, east stroudsburg university of pennsylvania, east stroudsburg, pa, usafind articles by amar kanekarmasters of public health program, american public university, east stroudsburg, pa, usa1department of health studies, east stroudsburg university of pennsylvania, east stroudsburg, pa, usacorrespondence to: ass. Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly article has been cited by other articles in ctintroduction:childhood obesity is a major public health crisis nationally and internationally. The purpose of this manuscript is to address various factors influencing childhood obesity, a variety of interventions and governmental actions addressing obesity and the challenges ahead for managing this s:in order to collect materials for this review a detailed search of cinahl, medline, eric, academic search premier databases was carried out for the time period s:some of the interventions used were family based, school based, community based, play based, and hospital based. Governments along with other health care organizations are taking effective actions like policy changing and environmentally safe interventions for children to improve physical sions:in conclusion, childhood obesity can be tackled at the population level by education, prevention and sustainable interventions related to healthy nutrition practices and physical activity ds: calorie imbalance, childhood obesity, interventions, physical activity, policy changingintroductionobesity is a major public health crisis among children and adults. Childhood-related obesity is an increasing concern with respect to the health and well-being of the child. Body mass index (bmi), a measure of weight with relation to height, is not only used as an outcome measure to determine obesity but also as a useful anthropometric index for cardiovascular risk. Childhood obesity is defined as a bmi at or above 95th percentile for children of same age and sex. 4] classifications of obesity in children depend upon the body composition of the child, as it varies with respect to age and sex of the child. 4]magnitude of the problemthe prevalence of childhood obesity is increasing in developed and underdeveloped countries. 5] the development in reducing the problem of obesity and overweight is monitored nationally by using data from national health and nutrition examination survey. 6] childhood obesity prevalence among preschool children between age group of 2-5-year-old girls and boys has increased from 5.

6] the data collected for the same period shows that the adolescent (age group 12-19 years) obesity has increased from 5. 6]open in a separate windowfigure 1graphically shows the increasing trend of obesity among children and adolescent population from 1963 to 2008. Source: cdc/nchs, national health examination surveys 11 (ages 6-11), 111 (ages 12-17), and national health and nutrition examination surveys (nhanes) 1-111 and nhanes 1999-2000, 2001-2002, 2003-2004, 2005-2006, and 2007-2008[6]table 1open in a separate windowprevalence of obesity among us children and adolescents aged 2-19, for selected years 1963-1965 through 2007-2008[6]healthy people 2010 have ranked obesity as number one health problem showing that prevalence of childhood obesity has increased over the years. 7] increased prevalence of childhood obesity may have adverse morbidity and mortality implications in the adult life of the child. There has been increased prevalence of childhood obesity in england, especially among school children over last few decades. 9] childhood obesity is common in united kingdom and according to the health survey conducted in 2004, obesity among 2-10-year olds was 14% and among 11-15-year olds was 15%. Boolean search strategy where the key words entered for search were “factors” and “childhood obesity” “interventions” and “governmental actions” and “economic problems” in differing orders were used to extract studies for this narrative s influencing childhood obesitychildhood obesity is due to the imbalance between caloric intake of the child and the calories utilized (for growth, development, metabolism, and physical activities). Normally the amount of calories a child consumes through food or beverages, if not used for energy activities, leads to obesity. Obesity can be multifactorial in c factorsthere are certain genetic factors which may lead to obesity in children. It is seen that children and teens nowadays lack the required amount of physical activity; hence the calories are not used properly and can lead to obesity. 12]it is seen that sedentary lifestyle is an important factor for obesity, as many children spend most of their time in front of television sets, play video games, and watch computers.

Children are prone to sedentary lifestyle such as watching television, consuming more energy-dense foods or snacks with large portion sizes, and having reduced physical activity, giving rise to obesity. Health problems related to obesity are not only physical but psychological and social as well. Children feel depressed and are nervous about their obesity issue and this has a negative effect on their behavior. The complications caused due to childhood obesity are severe and could continue to affect the health of a child even in adulthood. It is essential that parents are aware of the potential risk the child is facing due to obesity and take actions to control the problem. Hence, making them aware of healthy intervention programs via the community is important to reduce childhood obesity. 17] these innovative interventions can encourage children to lead a healthy ood-obesity prevention interventionspreventive programs are conducted to control obesity in children and to modify the social and behavioral aspect of developing obesity. Some of the preventive programs revolve around educating the general population about healthy nutrition and providing information about health problems caused due to childhood obesity. 15] health care professionals can advise their patients, especially parents, about healthy child nutrition, tackling health problems due to childhood obesity, and benefits of breast feeding among newborn children to prevent weight gain. 21] federal or state actions to deal with childhood obesity are directing all the food vendors to provide exact calorie readable labels on their products, mentioning calories upfront on menus, restricting advertisements of unhealthy foods, and promoting healthy food making among parents. Children aged 7 years and younger with no secondary complications of obesity are advised weight management.

Pharmacological therapy for children with obesity above the age of 12 years can include drugs like orlistat (which blocks fat from the intestine thus giving negative energy balance). 8] medical professionals are considering the benefits of bariatric surgery in extremely obese children to avoid complications of obesity in adulthood. According to a recent review about school-based interventions for obesity prevention, 17 out of 25 intervention studies were effective in reducing the body mass index. 23] some interventions targeting physical activity through physical education along with nutritional education worked in reducing obesity. 24]us governmental strategies to reduce childhood obesityaccording to the centers for disease control and prevention, identifying effective intervention strategies that can target both improvements in physical activity and providing nutritious diet to reduce childhood obesity are important. 21] interventions encouraging mothers to breastfeed their babies can be effective in reducing the risk of obesity in children. 21] the united states government is changing the health policies involving transportation, land use, education, agriculture, and economics so that it can have an important impact on healthy environment and health of people in turn reducing obesity. The first lady has also initiated an obesity prevention and control program titled ‘let's move’. Important data regarding evaluation of childhood obesity prevention schemes can be collected and can be used to make stronger and more effective strategies including policy building to reduce future childhood obesity rates. 25]conclusionschildhood obesity has become a public health crisis, not just in the united states but all over the world. Childhood obesity problem can be reduced by educating children and parents about healthy nutrition and encouraging them to be physically active.

Centers for disease control and prevention, overweight and obesity; childhood overweight and obesity, contributing factors. Centers for disease control and prevention (2011) [last retrieved on 2011 feb 03];cdc grand rounds: childhood obesity in the united states. The prevention of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents: a review of interventions and programmes. Overweight and obesity in childhood are known to have significant impact on both physical and psychological health. The mechanism of obesity development is not fully understood and it is believed to be a disorder with multiple causes. Environmental factors, lifestyle preferences, and cultural environment play pivotal roles in the rising prevalence of obesity worldwide. In general, overweight and obesity are assumed to be the results of an increase in caloric and fat intake. On the other hand, there are supporting evidence that excessive sugar intake by soft drink, increased portion size, and steady decline in physical activity have been playing major roles in the rising rates of obesity all around the world. Consequently, both over-consumption of calories and reduced physical activity are involved in childhood all researchers agree that prevention could be the key strategy for controlling the current epidemic of obesity. Prevention may include primary prevention of overweight or obesity, secondary prevention or prevention of weight regains following weight loss, and avoidance of more weight increase in obese persons unable to lose weight. It seems, however, that these strategies have had little impact on the growing increase of the obesity epidemic.

All in all, there is an urgent need to initiate prevention and treatment of obesity in dsphysical activityobesitychildhood obesitytelevision viewingoverweight uctionchildhood obesity has reached epidemic levels in developed countries. In some european countries such as the scandinavian countries the prevalence of childhood obesity is lower as compared with mediterranean countries, nonetheless, the proportion of obese children is rising in both cases [4]. The highest prevalence rates of childhood obesity have been observed in developed countries, however, its prevalence is increasing in developing countries as well. The prevalence of childhood obesity is high in the middle east, central and eastern europe [5]. For instance, in 1998, the world health organization project monitoring of cardiovascular diseases (monica) reported iran as one of the seven countries with the highest prevalence of childhood obesity. Kg/yr, twofold increase in prevalence of obesity1971–19746–19nhanes i [68]relatively stable1976–19806–19nhanes ii [68]relatively stable1988–19946–19nhanes iii [68]doubled to 11%1999–20006–19nhanes iv [68]increased by 4%. And obesity in childhood have significant impact on both physical and psychological health; for example, overweight and obesity are associated with hyperlipidaemia, hypertension, abnormal glucose tolerance, and infertility. Overweight children followed up for 40 [11] and 55 years [12] were more likely to have cardiovascular and digestive diseases, and die from any cause as compared with those who were tion of childhood obesityalthough definition of obesity and overweight has changed over time [13, 14], it can be defined as an excess of body fat (bf). There is no consensus on a cutoff point for excess fatness of overweight or obesity in children and adolescents. European researchers classified overweight as at or above 85th percentile and obesity as at or above 95th percentile of bmi [18]. In addition, bmi fails to distinguish between fat and fat-free mass (muscle and bone) and may exaggerate obesity in large muscular children.

While health consequences of obesity are related to excess fatness, the ideal method of classification should be based on direct measurement of fatness. Waist circumference, as a surrogate marker of visceral obesity, has been added to refine the measure of obesity related risks [25]. Waist circumference seems to be more accurate for children because it targets central obesity, which is a risk factor for type ii diabetes and coronary heart disease. To the best of our knowledge there is no publication on specific cut off points for waist circumference, but there are some ongoing of obesityalthough the mechanism of obesity development is not fully understood, it is confirmed that obesity occurs when energy intake exceeds energy expenditure. There are multiple etiologies for this imbalance, hence, and the rising prevalence of obesity cannot be addressed by a single etiology. However, environmental factors, lifestyle preferences, and cultural environment seem to play major roles in the rising prevalence of obesity worldwide [26–29]. In a small number of cases, childhood obesity is due to genes such as leptin deficiency or medical causes such as hypothyroidism and growth hormone deficiency or side effects due to drugs (e. Overweight and obesity are mostly assumed to be results of increase in caloric intake, there is not enough supporting evidence for such phenomenon. However, a small caloric imbalance (within the margin of error of estimation methods) is sufficient over a long period of time to lead to obesity. With concurrent rise in childhood obesity prevalence in the usa, the national health and nutrition examination survey (nhanes) noted only subtle change in calorie intake among us children from the 1970s to 1988–1994. For many years it has been claimed that the increase in pediatric obesity has happened because of an increase in high fat intake, contradictory results have been obtained by cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

The main objection to the notion that dietary fat is responsible for the accelerated pediatric obesity epidemic is the fact that at the same time the prevalence of childhood obesity was increasing, the consumption of dietary fat in different populations was decreasing. Although fat eaten in excess leads to obesity, there is not strong enough evidence that fat intake is the chief reason for the ascending trend of childhood dietary is a growing body of evidence suggesting that increasing dairy intake by about two servings per day could reduce the risk of overweight by up to 70% [43]. There are few data reporting the relation between calcium or dairy intake and obesity among n 1970 and 1997, the united state department of agriculture (usda) surveys indicated an increase of 118% of per capita consumption of carbonated drinks, and a decline of 23% for beverage milk [47]. Soft drink intake has been associated with the epidemic of obesity [48] and type ii diabetes [49] among children. Physical has been hypothesized that a steady decline in physical activity among all age groups has heavily contributed to rising rates of obesity all around the world. Numerous studies have shown that sedentary behaviors like watching television and playing computer games are associated with increased prevalence of obesity [51, 52]. In addition, increased proportions of children who are being driven to school and low participation rates in sports and physical education, particularly among adolescent girls [51], are also associated with increased obesity prevalence. In response to the significant impact that the cultural environment of a child has on his/her daily choices, promoting a more active lifestyle has wide ranging health benefits and minimal risk, making it a promising public health tionalmost all public health researchers and clinicians agree that prevention could be the key strategy for controlling the current epidemic of obesity [55]. Prevention may include primary prevention of overweight or obesity itself, secondary prevention or avoidance of weight regains following weight loss, and prevention of further weight increases in obese individuals unable to lose weight. Until now, most approaches have focused on changing the behavior of individuals on diet and exercise and it seems that these strategies have had little impact on the growing increase of the obesity age group is the priority for starting prevention? Therefore it would be more sensible to initiate prevention and treatment of obesity during childhood.

Of dietary pattern and tv appears that gains can be made in obesity prevention through restricting television viewing. Recent efforts in preventing obesity include the initiative of using school report cards to make the parents aware of their children's weight problem. Summary of prevention and intervention strategies is presented in table sionobesity is a chronic disorder that has multiple causes. It is believed that both over-consumption of calories and reduced physical activity are mainly involved in childhood ntly, primary or secondary prevention could be the key plan for controlling the current epidemic of obesity and these strategies seem to be more effective in children than in adults. However, further research needs to examine the most effective strategies of intervention, prevention, and treatment of obesity. 2001, 20: articlepubmedgoogle scholarparsons tj, power c, logan s, summerbell cd: childhood predictors of adult obesity: a systematic review. 1999, 23: google scholarwhitaker rc, wright ja, pepe ms, seidel kd, dietz wh: predicting obesity in young adulthood from childhood and parental obesity. Articlepubmedgoogle scholarkelishadi r, pour mh, sarraf-zadegan n, sadry gh, ansari r, alikhassy h, bashardoust n: obesity and associated modifiable environmental factors in iranian adolescents: isfahan healthy heart program - heart health promotion from childhood. Articlepubmedgoogle scholaralnuaim ar, bamgboye ea, alherbish a: the pattern of growth and obesity in saudi arabian male school children. 1996, 20: scholarmccarthy hd, ellis sm, cole tj: central overweight and obesity in british youth aged 11-16 years: cross sectional surveys of waist circumference. 1992, 327: articlepubmedgoogle scholarflegal km, carroll md, ogden cl, johnson cl: prevalence and trends in obesity among us adults, 1999-2000.

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Articlepubmedgoogle scholarzametkin aj, zoon ck, klein hw, munson s: psychiatric aspects of child and adolescent obesity: a review of the past 10 years. S0929-693x(01) articlepubmedgoogle scholarge k, t t, c t, t k: prevalence and trends in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents in thessaloniki, greece. 2); apr-jun s:article | pubreader | epub (beta) | printer friendly | ood obesity, a public health crisis: narrative review of public health interventions for childhood uction: child obesity is the major pediatric public health crisis of the current century and its trend is increasing in the developing countries due to nutrition and epidemiologic transition. Considering the burden of childhood obesity and its associated outcomes need for obesity prevention in children has become priority both for government and researchers. Key terms used during the review were obesity, overweight, childhood obesity, interventions for childhood obesity and body mass index. Conclusion: school curriculum including healthy eating, physical activity, development of movement skills, improvements in nutritional quality of the food supply in schools, environments, and cultural practices can play a vital role in preventing the obesity. Involving parents in the home setting to encourage children to be more active, eat more nutritious foods and spend less time in screen-based activities can prevent the childhood (s): sumera aziz ali, savera aziz ali, nadir suhail, shiyam sunder tikmani, gulshan ended conferences. Imedpub ltd last revised : april 05, ood obesity, a public health crisis: narrative review of public health interventions for childhood uction: child obesity is the major pediatric public health crisis of the current century and its trend is increasing in the developing countries due to nutrition and epidemiologic transition.